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City of Angels.

I’ve never been good with letting go.

The whole nostalgia of the past to let go in the present. Things weren’t always so bad and miserable. Sometimes they were pretty great. Dreams fade and you’re left with the dust of a harsh reality. Maybe I just like to make believe that everything was once perfect. Just go back to the 4 year old that put her hands in Marilyn Monroe’s handprints, dreaming that one day that would be her reality. The flashing lights never stop shining brightly when you’re a dreamer. The people of your past change and you become a different person when you’re older. Some how in your memories everyone remains the same. Just freeze framed into people that held the same dreams you did at one point. Every day was one big new beginning and every experience was a life changing event.

L.A. had always been a huge impact of my life. It was where my Dad came to call his adolescence home. Where no matter how crazy the drive was, it was always bigger, brighter, shinier than any city I had ever been to growing up. After a while the trips became less frequent and yet I still loved it. I yearned for a city, I knew nothing about and dreamed every day to return to it. I found myself telling everyone that “one day, I am going to move there and everything will happen for me”. That’s the thing with dreams, we dream so vividly we forget to gasp for air. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew I had to be somewhere that things happened. Where people from all walks of life migrated for just one tiny beckon of hope of a new beginning. Maybe that’s what I had always wanted. A new beginning. Anything better than the 4 years of being someone I didn’t like or the 5 years after processing a lifetime of heartbreak. Somewhere inside you knew that there was a place where you can start over and everything would be okay.

The countless times I fled to LA were always magical. Whether waiting countless hours in front a venue to see a band or sitting directly in front of the latest crush of the moment, I knew things were happening. The countless nights I toasted to dreams with my friends or the days I dreamed knowing that every moment this was my best choice. Every time I made a mistake, it didn’t matter because tomorrow was just another day to turn it all around. I loved it. I loved being surrounded by dreamers that all wanted the same dreams I did. They wanted to be better and brighter than their past, no matter how much they struggled they knew one day it would all be different. You continued dreaming and continued to have hope for a better beginning. It was just the magically mysticism of a city that made you believe that everything was possible. That everything you dreamed of will one day come true and everything else that happened in the past was just one sick twisted memory.

The reality of dreams is that one day reality comes crashing down. One day the dreams you held so closely eventually disappear when you wake up. Maybe LA will always be my Neverland, where I will forever be stuck in the mistakes of my youth. We were all just lost boys and girls looking for a way to keep the dreams of our youth alive. While I have seen my life change drastically through the years, its always that memory of being in love with a city so magical that I’ve never forgotten. The only city that I’ve ever wanted to run away to, that helped me grow up in ways I never understood at the time.

Its wrong to say I don’t miss it. Every night I catch myself missing it more than usual. I know in my heart that reality makes for a challenging adulthood and eventually our childish ways have to grow up. Just sometimes I can’t help but dream about the streets, the lights, and the sounds. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I still believe I’m back there. Back in my youth where everything was possible. Where dreams would one day become reality and every struggle was worth it.

Now that I’m older my dreams have changed. Yet I find myself saying sorry that I let you down LA but sometimes we have to break before we can become whole again. I had to leave you to realize that I could love myself before I could love you again. You were the city that was there for me when I needed you most and sometimes I forget that. I will forever be grateful to you. Grateful to the city of dreamers who all wanted exactly what I once did. Your beauty, your history, and the light of hope that never once let me down.